How To: 20-cwt GS trailer hand brake

[Grant Bowker]

I was looking at the red 20 cwt GS (Chinese aid contract) trailer frame at the Hammond trailer park and considering how easy/hard it would be to restore/rebuild it.

From the data plate, it should have the all steel body. In some ways this is easier (all one material) and in others harder (corrugated tailgate and pressed ribs in the front face) than the composite body. The trailer is missing the foot loops below the frame but Barry Churcher's similar trailer still has them so perhaps he'll let me measure them one day? Likewise the fenders have gone missing. I haven't compared the part numbers in the manual for the GS trailer to the part numbers for the gas welding, compressor or generator trailers to see whether they all used the same fender. I don't even know where to find a manual for the compressor trailer (if that's what Bob has in the trailer park - green frame with 2B1 body sitting on it) but Bob got fenders with the green frame. The ony issue with them is that they have had their mounting brackets extended laterally by about 1-1/2 inches.

The brake system remains on the axle but the master cylinder, linkage to drive it and the parking brake handle, linkage and cables are missing. The master cylinder is the standard Ford part, easy to source. The overun linkage to drive it could be reproduced using the linkage from the green frame as a pattern since the parts from the green frame seem to fit on the red frame.

Now we get to the point of this post. There were 2 patterns of parking brake used on these CMP trailers. one is the same as used on the Ford CMP trucks, looking like a straight stick with a pushbutton on the tip. The other was a shorter handle with a squeeze handle for the latch. This trailer is set up for the squeeze type. At first I thought this would be a problem to replicate, then I found some eBay listings for same shape handle but with a different base that looked like they could be the basis for a reasonable facsimile of the original squeeze handle assembly. This eBay listing is such a handle.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1940-...item4ced79389c

Otherwise the chassis seems in good shape and quite complete.

Images are the Hammond trailer park, the squeeze handle assembly from the GS trailer manual and the mounting plate for the brake handle on the trailer frame.